More musings from Menotti

duomo

"Duomo is a generic Italian term for a cathedral church. The formal word for a church that is presently a cathedral is cattedrale; a Duomo may be either a present or a former cathedral (the latter always in a town that no longer has a bishop nor therefore a cathedral, as for example. Such churches are usually referred to simply as "Il Duomo" or "The Duomo", without regard to the full proper name of the church."
Wikipedia

But the Duomo from Menotti is a dome shaped dessert of mascarpone and spiced cream with olive oil and sugar dough. This is probably one of the really underrated desserts because of it's ordinary looks and is also probably my favorite. Underneath the transparent film of jelly like surface is a carapace of sweet rich ivory mascarpone cream houses a spherical dark chocolate shell filled with liquid dark chocolate. For me, it's actually the mascarpone dome that does the trick. Despite it's not too enticing description from the menu, this is really good stuff. Get your Duomo today.

crocchette

Morton's certainly makes the best crab cakes in town, but Menotti's crocchette aren't too much of a slouch neither at less than half the price. Breaded and fried to a crispy golden brown surface, these savory cakes are made of shredded crab meat instead of whole chunks of crab. Apart from the big M, I'm definitely hard pressed to find better version these anywhere else. I'll be glad to be proven wrong though.

triple scoop gelato topped with a "mini Rum baba puff"

A mini Rum baba puff is an intrigueing name for a topping for gelato so there you have it at the top if you're still wondering. It's actually the little donut soaked in rum. From what I was told by a friend, rum babas are indeed cakes soaked in rum and are desserts that used to be available locally. Another non sentient friend mentions that the cake is of Slavic origins and the modern renditions today have gone through French influences. The triple scoop were olive oil, rum & raisin and hazelnut chocolate.

Out of the Pan, Raffles City

black pepper beef with sundried tomato crepe

Out of the Pan has been around for years as far as I can remember and this was the first time I'm eating here. What they do are mostly crepe which comes in either plain, whole wheat or sun dried tomato flavour. Besides that, there is a small selection of salads and crepe and waffles. 

In spite the small selection of fillings, the place is almost constantly crowded during meal hours. I wondered why. I'm not saying that the food was bad. The crepe was actually decent but I guess the popularity led me to believe that it was better. The Seafood Jungle came with real seafood. A generous amount of prawns, scallops and real shredded crab meat. Glad that this place didn't use crab sticks in their seafood whatever. It came with an unidentified sauce which was pretty okay if unspectacular. The black pepper option lacked the kick I was looking for in the pepper (it's just the regular sweet black pepper sauce). Overall the place wasn't bad but I'm not exactly inclined to re-visit.

 

the seafood jungle

Kushigin, Cuppage Plaza

Kushigin (5 Koek Road, #01-01, Cuppage Plaza) is an izakaya styled eatery similar to Kazu that specializes in charcoal grilled stuff. The decor looked like a small traditional Japanese restaurant but the music that they were playing ranged from retro pop to stuff from the 70s. Audio and visuals not so aligned. Kinda puts me off synch with the ambience. Where this place paled in comparison with Kazu, was the lack of variety. This was especially apparent for the charcoal grilled items. That being said, it wasn't implied that their quality was likewise lacking. In fact, I thought the grills from Kushigin were as good. Judging from the crowd, this seemed to be another one of the good eating places in Cuppage Plaza.

The menu has a selection of the "standard" fare of Japanese restaurants like tempuras, sashimis, bentos - along with a selection of grilled meats and vegetables which was that I was more interested in. There's nothing exotic here but the food quality was unquestionable.

garlic pork with leek

This tasted much better than it looked. The hot grilled pork was literally dripping with juices and oils while dressed in nothing more than salt and pepper.

oyster wrapped in bacon

An old favourite - nothing much needs to be further said about bacon blanketed oysters.

garlic rice

Their garlic rice was more subtle with the garlic flavour but it came with fried garlic chips which were really fragrant.

tanaka rice

This tasted like salted vegetable fried rice. Quite similar to the garlic rice. With preserved vegetables.

chicken with stuffed with plum and mint leaves

grilled chicken heart (bottom)/mushroom stuffed with minced chicken

beef in black bean sauce

This beef skewers were the least tasty of the lot. Reason was the black bean sauce which I found to be excessively salty and had a very strong ginger flavour. The result was overwhelming and made the meat unidentifiable. Am pretty sure that I would have enjoyed this much more without the sauce.

shishamo

The shishamo looked dry on the surface but were actually quite juicy. I am guessing that now was not the season for them since they weren't as pregnant with eggs as I would have liked. But still is good. Juicy good.

shishito pepper

These Japanese peppers looked like green chilli. The skill of grill managed to preserve some of the moisture in them while keeping the exterior dry. The flavour was new to me. I thought they were pretty good.

lady's finger

Bacon wrapped tomato and cheese with mint

I had no idea why the addition of mint leaves would enhance the flavour of this skewer. I personally felt that it would have tasted better without them. More cheese would have been welcomed.

lamb chops

These chops were good. The meat was served scorching hot, dripping with oil from the fat and it was one of the best lambs I've had so well done. Not something we could eat a lot of at a go because of excessive fat - which would be quietly killing us behind greasy smile as we gnawed the meat off the bone.

Kushigin was good, undeniably so in the department of grills. Because of variety, my vote would go to Kazu in terms of preference. But the quest for grills is not yet done. More awaits.

Scenes from Xi Yan

This was another dinner that was a long time in coming. If I remembered correctly, several prior arrangements had been made and things never took off because of various personal commitments by the attendees with various excuses for not being able to honor a simple dinner appointment at the last moments. This time round, some of us have actually made it. For the record, all the anticipation of this dinner probably set expectations higher. For $105, I had certainly expected better.

Xi Yan is a private dining room (it actually looks like an art gallery) that hails from Hong Kong. The place is located along 38A Craig Road. How this place works is that one turns up for their appointment with them and you eat what they have on menu for that day. There is no a la carte order from the menu and this featured dinner was a 12 course contemporary Chinese dinner which comes with a vocalized introduction of how each dish is painstakingly created upon service. Right. I mean, right on to the pictures....

greenhouse tomatoes in sesame sauce - these tomatoes were purported to be organic and grown in greenhouses. The texture of the tomatoes were noticeably different from regular ones and were actually more like persimmons rather than tomatoes. The sauce was a sesame vinaigrette taste a lot like the bottled types. Still, this turned out to be an appetising starter.

cold tofu pork floss - this chilled tofu was the second starter. The server made mention of the tofu being freshly made instead of using those that are factory made. Apart from the soy sauce which made it appetising, there was actually nothing special we could discerned about the tofu.

shrimp and crab paste on baguette toast - as mentioned by the server, the paste of shrimp and crab tasted like 'hay bee' or dried chilli shrimp. This was totally uninteresting and in fact, tasted cheap.

Sichuan pickles in spicy sauce - apart from tasting cheap, this was probably really cheap. Strip sliced gherkins and radishes that were marinated in some spicy Sichuan sauce. The effect was a combination of spiciness and sourness with a heavy hint of herbs. It didn't taste good to me.

deep fried prawns with salted egg yolk - the saving grace of the prawns was actually the sauce which was made with salted egg yolk. Mouth watering stuff. The prawns themselves weren't the fresh crunchy type I had expected. Didn't think I was asking for too much to expect that. The result was a disappointment. Did I mention that they weren't well cleaned as well?

stewed beef shin in tangerine peel - I couldn't taste any tangerine peel in this, but the sauce that was used to stew the beef was full of tangerine flavor. This stewed beef was pretty tasty.

fried lemongrass shrimp paste grouper - I couldn't find anything very special about prawn paste fish. What I really enjoyed was the very tangy citrus pomelo salad filled with chopped water chestnut. It made a  good compliment to the fried grouper.

basil sorbet intermezzo -basil sorbet with chopped fruits. Did it's job There is nothing more to say about the palate cleanser.

furong chicken soup - a chicken soup which was less flavorful than I was expecting. Another dish that fell off the mark. I'm sure I've had better soup elsewhere.

young and old happy news - for dou miao stir fried with preserved vegetables, this dish certainly had a cryptic name that got everyone on the table intrigued. The reason for the name on the other hand, was crappy. This was a very normal dish of fried dou miao, and I'm sure is rather inexpensive and easy to whip up. Thumbs down for a $105 dinner.

tofu ice cream on pandan glutinous rice - with the general impression of the food items here being mediocre, I had low expectations for the dessert. The pleasant surprise here was that this was actually very good. The fragrant pandan glutinous rice was coupled nicely with coconut milk and the cold ice cream. Tasted very Asian and was good enough that I wished there was more. Someone out there should mimic this. It probably will sell.

The general consensus for the dinner is that it was expensive for what was had. Xi Yan is probably good for an experience, not so much of that culinary adventure that one might expect from the place. Execution fell a little short and I think there was poor quality control over of some of the ingredients used. Personally, I wouldn't recommend it beyond a first.

Simply the best from Lawry's

Lawry's is currently having a promotion which they dub 'Simply the Best'. Each day of the weekday has a different promotional offer. But I'll clue you in straight on what's actually good. Go for the Wednesday early bird special where you get 50% off the bill. The promotion's good til the end of April as I was told by their staff. It's half price off menu items and it's the only time you can get a solid slab of 450g prime rib for less than 50 bucks.

More lunch at Garibaldi

Garibaldi has of recent months(?) upped their cost for lunch. It used to be $29++ and now it's $32++. I'm not sure about a $3 increment in experience though. The deal for the lunch is still the same as before, 3 courses plus coffee or tea. This lunch was done with a reader whom has responded to and old post from last year. It's dated, but what the heck. It's usually interesting to meet new people and perspective. Especially people who enjoy a good meal.

I wasn't expecting any noticeable changes in the food quality as it wasn't that long back since I last ate here. I will try to remember to come back for dinner instead. It'll be more interesting than lunch and you'll get to see something else other than pasta (which is btw, always an excellent al dente in hot sauce). ;)

crostini di polenta con funghi e fonduta de taleggio
penne alla carbonara I

penne alla carbonara II

penne alla carbonara III

chocolate and a forgotten flavour